This page contains archived entries from the current year's
"This Month in Legal History" column and links to the archived entries
from previous years. The column features a different event from the
history of law and jurisprudence of Douglas County, Kansas, that
occurred during the month. It is published monthly in the Douglas
County Law Library E-Mail Newsletter and on the Home page of this
website. Entries will be added to this page, most recent at the bottom,
following the end of the month in which they were published. Archived
entries from previous years can be accessed by clicking on one of the links at the bottom of this page.
January 24-28, 1859 - Joel and Emily Grover violate the Fugitive Slave Act
- On September 18, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed into law a
new Fugitive Slave Act. It was one of five bills Fillmore signed into
law as part of the Compromise of 1850. Prior to the Act, laws in the
United States covering the capture and return of slaves who had run
away from bondage were weak. Once fugitive slaves had escaped to a
state that did not allow slavery, they were relatively safe from being
forcibly returned to bondage. There was always the possibility of being
discovered and taken back by a slave catcher, but the majority of
people in Free states left them alone. Most officials did nothing
unless specific legal action was taken by slave owners attempting to
reclaim their slaves. Thus, most fugitive slaves who did not continue
on to security in Canada were able to settle in northern states and
begin life as relatively free men and women. The Fugitive Slave Act of
1850 changed all that. It required that all fugitive slaves be returned
to their masters. It further required that Federal marshals and other
officials actively seek out, capture, and return any fugitive slave,
from anywhere in the United States, regardless of the laws of the state
in which the fugitive was found. Failure to do so made the official
liable to a $1,000 fine. In addition, any person who aided a runaway
slave in any manner was subject to six months Federal imprisonment and
a $1,000 fine. In September 1854, Joel Grover, born August 5, 1825, in
Springwater, New York, came to what was to become Lawrence, Kansas, in
the second party of Free-State immigrants sponsored by the New England
Emigrant Aid Company. They came to make certain that the Territory of
Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a state that did not allow
slavery. That November, Grover was appointed Constable for the First
District, Territory of Kansas, and served as marshal of the newly
established town of Lawrence. On November 27 of the following year, he
was commissioned as Colonel of the 6th Regiment, First Brigade of
Kansas Volunteers, by James Henry Lane, "to defend the City of Lawrence
from threatened destruction by foreign invaders" during the Wakarusa
War, the war without a battle, when the Free-State town was threatened
by a large force of pro-slavery men. On October 13, 1857, Grover
married Emily Jane Hunt. She had been born September 1, 1839, in
Medway, Massachusetts, and was described as a passionate abolitionist.
She had come to Kansas in 1855 in the care of Charles Robinson, future
first Governor of the State of Kansas, and had worked for him and his
wife as their housekeeper prior to her marriage to Grover. In 1858,
Grover built a stone barn on the farm he and Emily had acquired about
three miles southwest of Lawrence. On January 24, 1859, the
abolitionist John Brown arrived on the doorstep of Joel and Emily
Grover with twelve people escaping to freedom. The Grovers were
conductors on the Underground Railroad, the nationwide network of
clandestine safe houses run by abolitionists who assisted fugitive
slaves to escape to freedom. Joel and Emily did this in spite of the
risks it entailed to all they had built up over the past few years.
Their participation was known by certain members of the abolitionist
community, so when John Brown came to the area escorting twelve human
beings fleeing slavery, he came to them. Five weeks earlier, on
December 19, 1858, Brown had received a request from Jim Daniels, a
slave who had come into Kansas from his home in Missouri, ostensibly to
sell brooms, but in reality seeking help for his family. Daniels had
asked the abolitionist to rescue his wife and children who were about
to be sold and sent away south. The next day, December 20th, Brown and
his men went into Vernon County, Missouri, and freed 11 slaves,
including the family of Daniels, and brought them into Kansas. Near the
town of Garnett, Kansas, a baby boy was born to Daniels' wife, who
named her new freeborn son John Brown Daniels. When John Brown arrived
on the doorstep of Joel and Emily Grover on January 24, 1859, with
twelve tired, hungry souls, the Grovers took them in. They hid the
fugitives in their barn, and by taking in and sheltering the runaway
slaves, they violated the Fugitive Slave Act. If the fugitives were
discovered on their property, Joel and Emily each risked receiving six
months in Federal prison and a $1,000 fine for each of their twelve
guests. The fugitives stayed in the Grover's barn until the 28th, when
Brown moved them along on their road to freedom, eventually taking them
all the way to Detroit, Michigan, where the fugitives crossed to safety
in Canada. The presence of fugitives on their property did not diminish
the Grover's standing in the community, as witnessed by Joel serving as
Douglas County Commissioner later that year. His standing in the
community was further illustrated by his being elected to represent the
36th District in the Kansas House for the 1868/69 term. The Grovers
stayed on their farm the rest of their lives, eventually parenting
seven children. Joel died July 28, 1879. Emily died in 1921. The farm
passed through several hands until it was sold and subdivided into
suburban lots as part of a growing Lawrence. In the 1980s, the City of
Lawrence acquired the barn, by then surrounded by houses and lawns, and
converted it into a fire station, preserving the majority of the
structure. In 2006, the barn was deactivated as a fire station and the
City began looking for how to utilize the building in the future. One
proposal was to turn the barn into an Underground Railroad
Interpretative Center/Abolition Museum. On February 14, 2006, the
Lawrence City Commission passed an ordinance designating the barn a
landmark on the Lawrence Register of Historic Place, and on January 20,
2009, Lawrence Mayor Michael Dever signed a proclamation commemorating
the stay of the twelve "freedom-seekers" in the Grover Barn. At
present, the barn is being used by the City for storage and its future
remains uncertain. (From: Publications of the Kansas
State Historical Society, embracing biographical sketches…at
Topeka, January 29, 1886. Kansas Publishing House, Topeka, 1886, p. 40; Joel Grover,
Kansas Legislators Past & Present, State Library of Kansas; A
History of Lawrence from the earliest settlement to the close of the
rebellion, by Richard Cordley, E. F. Caldwell, Lawrence, Kansas, 1895, Chapter 1; Militia Commission, issued by James H. Lane to Joel Grover, November 27, 1855; Emily Hunt Grover, by Diana Welsh, The Lecompton Reenactor, v. 3, issue 9 (September 2008), Lecompton, Kansas; Letter, William A. Phillips, State Marshall, to Joel Grover,
June 24, 1859; The Grover Barn: A Proposal for Preservation, by Craig
S. Crosswhite, Unpublished Manuscript, July 10, 1980; and, Proclamation, January 20, 2009. Published 1/10.) Back to top of page
February 26, 1861 - Louis Carpenter records his first case as Probate Judge of Douglas County, Kansas
- Louis Carpenter came to Kansas in the late 1850s, and by early 1859
was serving as a Deputy Clerk of the United States District Court of
Kansas Territory, 2nd Judicial District for Douglas County. He had been
born December 14, 1829, in New York State. When and how he studied law
is not known, but by February 26, 1861, he had been appointed Probate
Judge of Douglas County, and on that date recorded his first case. He
continued as probate judge until early 1863, his last case being
recorded on January 10th of that year. During his tenure as probate
judge, many important events took place, both in his personal life and
nationally. The American Civil War, having smoldered in Kansas for
seven years, broke out across the entire nation in the Spring of 1861.
In 1862, Carpenter bought, sold, traded, and bartered lots in Lawrence,
Kansas, the results being two large adjoining lots and sufficient
bricks and foundation stone for a large brick house, which he
subsequently had built. Also in 1862, he married his fiancée,
Mary E. Barber, and, in the election that fall, ran an unsuccessful
campaign as the candidate of the Union Party for Attorney General of
Kansas. Around the time he left the bench, he was appointed as Kansas
Supreme Court Reporter, and through the spring and summer of 1863, he
compiled and edited material intended to be published as the first
report of the Kansas Supreme Court. He and his new wife were at home on
the morning of August 21, 1863, when William Quantrill and his band of
400 Confederate guerillas attacked Lawrence, killing and burning as
they went. Several of the raiders came to Carpenter's home, and when he
replied "New York" to the question "Where are you from," they began
shooting him. He collapsed and died in his back yard. He was eventually
buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, near the final resting place
of many other victims of Quantrill's Raid. (From: Judge Louis Carpenter page, Douglas County Law Library website. Published 2/10.) Back to top of page
2006
2007
2008
2009
|
